The Two Times My Kids Almost Died Last Month

Friday, July 31, 2015

Is parenting full of close calls with life and death? In the last three years I've been doing the mom gig, we've had about five really close calls. There was the time Jay fell off a changing table when he was five days old at the WIC office (I caught him at the very last second), the time Jay got pneumonia, Em's entire diagnosis situation last year, and now these two great stories I'm going to share with you today. These kids will in fact give me gray hair.

^Picture taken on our way to Charlotte a few weeks ago. Sometimes its good to remember how cute they are when they scare you half to death.

A couple weeks ago we ran to the mall in the morning because I needed to make a return at Macy's. I unloaded the kids from the car, put them in the double stroller, made my return, and then we left the mall and headed back to the car. I put each kid in their car seat, and then headed to the back of our SUV to put the stroller away. I didn't realize Jay was holding my car keys in his seat with him, and as soon as I shut the back of the car from getting the stroller in there, he accidentally hit the lock button on the car, locking him, and his younger sister inside. Had this been the winter it wouldn't have been the complete worst thing ever, but it's Georgia, in the summer, and it was 98° already at 11am.

I found an older man in the parking lot and asked him if he could help me get any of my doors open and explained the situation to him. He came to help but quickly realized he could do nothing and advised me to call 911. I called 911 and they sent the fire truck over to us. The older man stayed the entire time and waited with us. He took out his car keys and was showing Jay the button that he needed to push to unlock the car. Jay understood what he was getting at but he was holding his stuffed duck and was trying to get the stuffed duck to push the button instead of himself. (NOT the time for us to be finding out how strong "Steve the Duck" is Jay, not the time.)

Eventually right as the fire trucks were pulling up, right before they would have had to smash our windows in to unlock the car, Jay hit the button unlocking him and his sister from the heat trap. When I got in there they were definitely sweaty, and it makes me so sad for the people who loose children in heated cars. Please don't leave your kids in a hot car, it's my PSA.

Moving on, a couple weeks ago I got a membership to the gym. They have a daycare there where they watch Jay and Em for up to two hours while I workout. Side note- I max out at 30 minutes, they're never in there long. When I was done running I went to get Jay and Em. I put Em back in her car seat and carried her, and held Jay's hand as I walked back to the car. In the daycare they put stickers on your kids so they know their names. Jay's was still on his back, and Em's fell off so they put it on her car seat.

During the ride home I noticed I missed a call from my dad and decided to call him back. As I was pulling into my neighborhood I heard choking noises from the backseat. I told my dad I had to go, threw the phone, parked the car, got out of the car and ran to Em to find her face beat red and her eyes watery. I worked as fast as I could to get her out of her car seat and right as I was grabbing her she gagged so hard that she threw up her morning bottle, and in the river of milk that was coming out was her name tag from the gym that she managed to pick off of her car seat during the ride home.

She was fine, both kids are fine, but I'm definitely ten times more hyper aware of every. little. thing. Both of these incidents happened within a week from each other. Hopefully there won't be anymore near death experiences over here ever again. Or for at least six months, because I need a break from those.

12 comments

Oh my gosh! My heart is racing just reading these posts! I'm glad everyone is okay but I hope things are calmer from now on or you're definitely going to have to invest in some hair dye with all those gray hairs they will give you! :)

Oh my gosh, glad that everything worked out for the best in the end!!! Really terrifying how easy it is for kids to hurt themselves when you think about it. I'll never forget when I stepped into the garage for a second and my little girl locked me in there. Luckily I somehow got her to unlock it, how I communicated that to a 2 year old was a miracle!

Oh my gosh, glad that everything worked out for the best in the end!!! Really terrifying how easy it is for kids to hurt themselves when you think about it. I'll never forget when I stepped into the garage for a second and my little girl locked me in there. Luckily I somehow got her to unlock it, how I communicated that to a 2 year old was a miracle!